Documents / Hearing transcript
This is the printed transcript of a September 9, 2025 hearing held by the U.S. House Oversight Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, chaired by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. The witnesses were Jeffrey Nuccetelli, Alexandro Wiggins, George Knapp, Dylan Borland and Joe Spielberger. They described UAP incursions at Vandenberg Air Force Base from 2003 to 2005 and a tic-tac-shaped object seen from USS Jackson in 2023. Members criticized AARO and called for whistleblower protections and the UAP Disclosure Act.
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31 Ms. LEE. And unfortunately, whistleblowing can lead to serious repercussions and retaliation, especially in this vindictive and law- less administration. Mr. Spielberger, in the past, what kinds of re- taliation have they faced, and what are we seeing today under the Trump administration? Mr. SPIELBERGER. So, we have certainly heard about a number of different examples of retaliation. One that I would like to high- light that Mr. Borland referenced previously is retaliation through abuse of the security clearance process. That can have grave impli- cations not just for a whistleblower but also their ability to seek legal counsel and defend themselves against retaliation. And when we look at the past several months of this administra- tion, unfortunately, we have seen a really systematic approach to- ward dismantling the nonpartisan civil service. We have seen the mass firings. We have seen undermining of independent agency watchdogs, mass firings of inspectors general, undermining the Of- fice of Special Counsel, the Merit Systems Protection Board, again, these entities that are meant to be independent and play a critical role in investigating whistleblower disclosures and ensuring that their rights are protected. Ms. LEE. Yes. Thank you. In 1989, Congress passed the Whistle- blower Protection Act and then broadened it again in 2012 to en- sure that Federal workers could feel free to come forward to their elected officials. And it is a good thing we did because whistle- blowers have played a more important role than ever since Trump has taken office. It was thanks to a whistleblower that we learned that DOGE al- legedly put every single American’s personal security information at risk by bypassing safeguards and copying all this data to an un- secure server. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a New York Times article titled ‘‘DOGE put critical Social Security data at risk, whistleblower says.’’ Mrs. LUNA. Good to go. Ms. LEE. Thanks. We have had whistleblowers at the National Labor Relations Board reveal that DOGE minions may have shipped case files outside of the agency, possibly to help then co- president Elon Musk continue to exploit his workers. And last week, whistleblowers at the National Institute of Health came for- ward to say that RFK Jr.’s vaccine misinformation campaign had pervaded even the highest levels of the agency. Typically, whistle- blowers have an inspector general they can rely on to investigate their claims and register issues with agency leadership, but Presi- dent Trump has fired or demoted over 20 inspectors general. If I may ask one more question, Mr. Spielberger, can you explain how eroding the independence and capabilities of inspectors gen- eral further endanger these whistleblowers? Mr. SPIELBERGER. Absolutely. So, again, whistleblowers already face incredibly great challenges in coming forward under normal circumstances, and when we erode these entities that are expected and required to enforce whistleblower protections, fairly investigate their disclosures, it calls into question the integrity of their inves- tigations and findings, whether they will take whistleblowers seri- ously when they come forward, and whether we can trust that they will use their authority to enforce the protections of whistleblowers
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Hearing transcript, from the govinfo collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 54 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.